Patent disclosure and England’s early industrial revolution

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Abstract
Did the English patent system helps to spark the Industrial Revolution? Most scholars addressing this question have focused on whether patents improved the economic incentive to invent. In contrast, I focus on whether patents improved access to useful knowledge—via the requirement (instituted in 1734) that patentees provide technical specifications for their inventions. I documented a structural break in per capita patenting in 1734—but only in London, where specifications were stored. I also documented a structural shift in London-based inventors’ responsiveness to non-metropolitan patents in 1734, when specifications for them became regularly available.

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